Vancouver, BC, Canada

I'm going to mix things up a little bit this time and start off with a Haiku:

Glistening windows,

Smiling faces all ways.

Tickle my fancy

See what I mean?

Downtown Vancouver opens up to its visitors with a panoply of modern buildings each competing with its neighbor to offer the city more shining glass reflecting the bright blue Canadian sky. While glass windows are abound, free parking is not, so I was forced to quickly check-in to the central hostel, drop off my bags and run back to the car before I got a ticket for parking on the street without feeding the meter (I had not yet withdrawn any Canadian moolah at that point). I drove to the suburbs and left Roy where he wouldn't be victimized by any nefarious meter fairies. The three mile walk back gave me plenty of great photo ops.

A shot of the marina from my waterfront stroll

I befriended an Irish chap, Mark, from Dublin in the hostel when I finally made it back and we found a BBQ joint recommended by my guidebook. Once we got the perfunctory small talk out of the way, Mark and I celebrated his heritage by going to the pub to drink. There we got a few pitchers of beer and rounded up some people to play drinking games. In total, we met two Vancouver locals, a German, two Aussies and a British ex-pat who enthusiastically cheersed the nearest person to her every few minutes to celebrate jubilee. What is jubilee you ask? I didn't know either until she explained that it was the queen of England's 60th anniversary at the throne. Cheers indeed. My new found gang of friends and I shared many more pitchers and danced our hearts out at a nearby club. As Borat would say, my first night was, "Great success!"

Day two began with more classic tourist sightseeing along the waterfront and gentle stroll through Stanley Park, Vancouver's massive public park that is comparable in size to the entire downtown itself. 

As you can see, the grind is
basically an endless series of stairs
carved into Grouse Mountain

The highlights of the day, however, came in the afternoon. I jogged the three miles back to Roy and zipped up to North Vancouver to take on the Grouse Grind also known as nature's stairmaster. The grind is a 1.8 mile trail that goes up near vertically for 2,800 feet - yeesh. The trail record holder completed the grind in just under 25 minutes. I figured since I was in shape it would probably take me about 2.5 times longer. I huffed and I puffed my way up the grind - stopping for the occasional photo op of course - all the while never being passed by a single person on the trail. At one point I had to stop just to take a picture of the snow on the trail that remained because of the elevation change. At the top, drenched in sweat, with my heart literally throbbing from the aerobic strain, I checked my watch to see my time, just over an hour and five minutes. That record holder must be a freak. The top of the grind offered fantastic views over all of Vancouver and luckily had a gondola that I could ride back to the bottom. Going down the grind looked like a great way to twist an ankle or break a bone.

In addition to the Grouse Grind, another staple of a legitimate Vancouver trip is all-you-can-eat sushi. Fun fact: Vancouver is second only to Japan for having the most sushi restaurants per capita. I planned to take full advantage of the literal meaning of all-you-can-eat so that day I only ate a PB and J sandwich for breakfast. The grind and the run to and from Roy also helped increase my appetite. Taking the advice of a fellow grinder I met on the gondola ride down to the base, I went to Tanpopo an authentic Japanese restaurant on Denman St. My previous record for pieces of sushi eaten in a single session was 46. I crushed it with following:

Miso soup (didn't count this towards the sushi tally)

4 deep fried gyoza

8 spicy tuna rolls

8 prawn tempura rolls

Sashimi (1 each):

sockeye salmon

atlantic salmon

tuna

beef tataki

red snapper

surf clam

8 beef teriyaki rolls

2 salmon sushi

4 crunch rolls

8 california rolls

6 oshiko maki (pickled yam rolls - they turned out to be rather sweet)

1 special scallop cone (the size of 4 regular rolls)

total sushi count = 55

I topped it all off with a dessert of banana fry, which I thought was Canadian for bananas foster, but turned out to be sauteed bananas deep friend in a phillo-dough wrap. All that for 15 dollars, not bad.

That's it for Vancouver. I must be off to go sing some karaoke and have a beer in Lake Louise (inside Banff National Park). Banff will be coming soon!